One version of Panem's history
by Snugglebunny83
Summary: This is my take on what might have happened to turn the United States into Panem and bring about the creation of the Hunger Games. It is told in a first person viewpoint from just a generic character. No names were used. The Hunger Games, Panem, and all material related to such belong to Suzanne Collins.


I was there when the Hunger Games started, and I was there to see the devastation that led to the creation of Panem and the games. There are few around now that remember when this land was called the United States and was considered to be a free land, a good land. We made mistakes, too many of them. Mistakes that future generations would have to pay for, long after we were dust. It started with electing the wrong type of leader. We joked that he would bring about the end of the world. I expressed my fears about him, but my dear friend told me that we would survive him. Haven't we survived quite a lot already? He asked. I believed he was right. We would survive and leaders would come and go, but we and our country would remain. How naïve I was. It started out small, a law repealed here, a wall built there. Nobody paid it much mind, because for a while, our lives were good. No need to be concerned about what the government is doing when you have a roof over your head and your belly was full.

Then the troubles came. The climate change that we should have been concerned about, but kept ignoring, caused massive floods and huge chunks of the country were lost. In losing the land, we lost many of our resources for growing food, and people started to starve. Honeybees were almost completely wiped out by some unknown source. In trying to find a way to save them, scientists developed what would become the Tracker Jacker. Of course that made the new regime very happy. If they couldn't find a way to feed their people, at least they found new and brutal ways to control them. In some parts of the country, it was lack of good water that was the problem. In trying to bring in more quantities of valuable materials such as coal, oil, and natural gas, water supplies were poisoned and people sickened and died. Most were initially wiped out by the cancers that grew in their bodies from drinking the bad water. The poisons built up in women's reproductive organs and caused most of the children to be born with severe birth defects. Most of them did not even survive the birth process. Still other people slowly starved to death because their land was also poisoned and they could not grow enough food.

In answer to the troubles, the districts were formed and the government renamed this place, Panem. If we turned a blind eye to what they were doing, we would be fed, sheltered, and entertained. One of the first acts proposed by the new regime was that everyone was to return to the district where they were born. I was originally from what became District Eight, and my then husband was from District Six. Our marriage was broken up and we were both reassigned. In this, we at least had a small option of choice. A list of approved candidates was passed to us and we chose from there. Before I chose my new spouse, I had to endure vigorous DNA testings, and mental and physical exams. Women were now viewed as being little better than cattle and we were told that our sole purpose was to breed good workers for Panem.

Unions in which there were same sex couples, or an infertile partner were broken up likewise, and people were reassigned. Infertile women were paired with infertile men and given what were called the Irregular children to raise according to Capitol standards. These irregular children were the products of mixed race, mixed nationality, or mixed district couples. Persons who were found to be physically or mentally unfit to either work or breed were euthanized. It sounds cruel to say so, but for the most part, no one cared about that, especially in the poorer districts. People who ate but couldn't contribute were seen as burdens.

With my DNA testing, there were two bloodlines which the Capitol breeding stock officials wanted to strengthen and develop. The German bloodline from my father, and the English bloodline from my maternal grandfather. A list of fertile men in my age group that qualified for either bloodline was drawn up for me. I was pleased to see a few familiar names. If I had to remarry and have children with another man, I wanted it to at least be with someone I knew. Out of the four men I knew, I picked a name at random. Within moments of making my choice, we were paired up and married before a Capitol official. We were allowed a month's time to get better acquainted with each other again, time that we were encouraged to use for breeding, and then we were assigned jobs.

District Eight is the textile district. Workers here are mainly responsible for the manufacture of the Peacekeeper uniforms, but they also make the material that is turned into the fancy costumes of the Capitol. I was married for two years and bore my husband two sons before I lost him to a mill fire. I will remember the day they brought his body back to me until my dying day. I knew the work would eventually kill him. At the time, I thought the buildup of the dust and lint that got into his lungs and made him gasp and choke for breath would be his undoing. It was the fire though. A spark from an overheating machine caught the lint covered floor on fire, and the factory was soon ablaze. Every worker there perished because the doors had been shut and locked from the outside to discourage workers from leaving the factory and wasting valuable production time.

My first husband's district was the transportation district. They assigned him a job in a steel mill and he didn't even last a year. He died without even knowing his new wife was pregnant with his child. Although it was against the rules to communicate with other districts, she kept in touch for a while, letting me know of his death and the subsequent birth of his daughter.

I was twice married and twice widowed with two sons to raise on my own. I thought that I might be reassigned with a third partner, but the Capitol officials in charge of the marriage and breeding programs said I had already done my share and soon would be too old to produce healthy children anyway. My time was then divided between raising my sons and working in the button factory, sorting and packing boxes of buttons for Peacekeeper uniforms.

When my sons were deemed old enough to work, they were taken out of school and employed at another mill. To ensure a constant supply of quality breeding stock, the Capitol decreed that as soon as a child entered puberty and became fertile, they were expected to marry and begin to produce children of their own. As you can imagine, a lot of young girls lost their lives from this, their young bodies too underdeveloped to stand the strain of pregnancy.

Years passed and people lived, worked, and died without any hope of change. Then District Thirteen rebelled. For a brief moment, we began to hope again, but the Capitol quashed the rebellion and created the Hunger Games as both a punishment for our insolence and an entertainment to keep us distracted so we would not try such a thing again. For many years, they have succeeded, but now I hear a new note in the Mockingjay's call. A note that just might be the signal to hope again.


End file.
